The Pokemon Company is working with Nintendo and Niantic, the developers of Google’s popular augmented reality game Ingress, to create the Pokemon game many people have likely always wanted (I’ve been waiting 17 years for this).
Pokemon Go will allow players to catch, trade and battle Pocket Monsters in the real world via augmented reality. Yes, you read that correctly. The game adult Pokemon fans probably dreamed about as a child actually exists and is coming at some point in 2016.
Along with being able to play the game on iOS and Android devices, players will also be able to use a rather silly looking Bluetooth-enabled wearable dubbed the Pokemon Go Plus, which is designed to light up and help you perform in-game actions like locating and capturing nearby Pokemon (I’ll still be wearing it no matter how ridiculous it looks).
Niantic is handling the game’s development but Junichi Masuda, director of many of the main series Pokemon games, will also be contributing to the project on a significant level. And while the game’s reveal trailer is beyond impressive, it’s unlikely the actual experience of playing the game will reflect this video. Still, it’s an augmented reality Pokemon game and definitely a step in the right direction for Nintendo and the Pokemon franchise.
The new Pokemon Go wearable in all it’s awkward-looking glory.
It’s important to note Pokemon Go isn’t one of the five DeNA-developed mobile titles Nintendo plans to release over the next few years. The Pokemon series also isn’t solely owned by Nintendo, which is a big part of why we’ve already seen the release of Pokemon titles on mobile like Pokemon Shuffle. The series is jointly owned by Creatures Inc., Nintendo, and Game Freak.
The big takeaway from this announcement though is that Nintendo is finally taking mobile games seriously and that Pokemon Go is likely a solid indicator of what we’ll see from the company’s mobile titles when they finally release in 2016.
[source] Pokemon [/source]
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